Page 85 of Moonshine Lullabies

“What?” she asked.

“One? You can scream, cry, do whatever it is you need to do right here and right now. Two? You can just sit there and breathe and wait ‘til we get home.”

“How about option three?” she asked, staring out the window of the truck, her face turned away from me.

“What’s that one?” I asked.

“I get back to the apartment and take a shower hotter ‘n hell and just wash it down the drain. No sense in fussin’ and all that carryin’ on for nothin’.”

I nodded and took in a slow deep breath and said, “Ladies choice, baby. You deal with it however you need to deal with it – just know you ain’t gotta deal with it alone no more. Okay?”

She turned her head in my direction and stared at me, eyes a little wide and it was as though she was turning the implications of what I’d just said over and over in her mind. I raised her hand off the seat, and she froze, jumping and resisting slightly in reflex at first, but then she acquiesced and relented and I pressed a kiss to her hand.

Her eyes grew a little misty from what I gathered from the stolen glances I could make while drivin’ us down the road and finally she sniffed and turned her face back to the night darkened glass.

I just held her hand and let her be for now. Let her sort her feelings.

The drive felt twice as long as it usually did. I didn’t turn on any music or nothin’. I didn’t want her to think I was being insensitive. I figured if she wanted music, she would turn it on… but she didn’t. She just kept a death grip on my hand and stared sightlessly out her window lost in her thoughts the whole way back.

I pulled up to the curb in the loading zone in front of the apartment lobby door and let her out. I went to the back of the truck and helped her get it inside behind the front door and said, “Wait here. I’m gonna park this thing and help out carry it all on up.”

She nodded, and I did just that and once inside the apartment, I helped her stack things by the door that she wanted to take across to the club later, and the rest I helped her put away where she wanted it. When we were done, I didn’t even try to touch her. I just did what she said she wanted and turned on the shower for her, cranking it up so it’d get warm.

“You want to shower on your own or can I join you?” I asked turning to find her in the doorway, shoulder leaned against the jamb and her arms crossed below her breasts.

“I’d like for you to join me, if you don’t mind,” she said softly and I smiled.

“Don’t mind at all, just want to do what’s right by you and I’m trying to learn what that is.”

“Kiss me, please?” she asked, and her voice broke slightly on her tremulous please.

I went to her and took her into my arms and kissed her gently, slowly, building up to our usual fervor. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was up. I wasn’t sure if she needed to know that I still wanted her, or if she wanted to use my touch to erase the ugly inside of her head… I didn’t know if this was an attempt to overcome insecurity or to reclaim her agency. I just didn’t know. Whatever went on in that pretty little head of hers was a beautiful fuckin’ mystery to me and that was okay.

She stepped into me and I touched her lightly over her clothes, plucking at an article at a time and asking, “Okay if I take this off?”

She sighed out contentedly and answered me without words, yet still in the affirmative: “Mm-hm.”

I plucked each piece from her and asked each time, and didn’t say a word when she covered herself with her arms. I knew I’d seen it all before, and she knew it, too… but it wasn’t about that right now. It was about keeping her comfortable in her vulnerability which I knew she wasn’t used to. Either being vulnerable, nor being kept comfortable in it.

As soon as she was nude, I pulled back the shower curtain and helped her on into it.

“Two seconds and I’ll be right there with you,” I murmured and kissed her lightly and quickly before whisking the curtain shut.

I stripped down quick and made good on my promise, stepping in behind her and gritting my teeth slightly when I stuck my hand under the spray to test it.

“Too hot?” she asked and I forced a smile and lied.

“Nope.”

I would deal.

After that, there were no more words. Just thought and feeling.

I cupped her face between my hands and tilted her face up to mine and kissed her softly, and she kissed me back. Her back soaking up the heat of the spray, her arms going around me.

I stepped into her and cradled her gently and she very nearly sagged into me with relief.

When she shuddered with the first little bubbling sob I pulled back and whispered, “You just let it out, baby. I’m here, I’m right here.” I crushed her to me and she broke, crashing into me like a wave into the rocks and the tempest just fuckingraged.

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